KBE wants control of spending

An aerial view of Ejit Island in Majuro, one of the three islands that make up the KBE’s area.
An aerial view of Ejit Island in Majuro, one of the three islands that make up the KBE’s area.

The Kili-Bikini-Ejit (KBE) Local Council wants to end US government oversight of its Resettlement Trust Fund.

KBE Mayor Anderson Jibas recently wrote to Isaac Edwards, the senior majority counsel for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, informing him that “the time has come to end the Federal oversight of the Resettlement Trust Fund.” The Senate Energy has oversight of US policy and funding for US-affiliated islands.

Jibas said the KBE Local Government was drafting a “rescript” to show its official position for terminating US oversight of the trust fund as well as KBE’s annual budget.

For decades, the KBE Council has prepared its annual budget from proceeds of the Resettlement Trust fund in consultation with the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs. KBE Council has followed a formula basing its annual fiscal year budget on the performance of the trust fund over the previous three years.

But said Jibas in his letter to Edwards, he wants to end Interior’s involvement in their budgeting and use of trust fund money.

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